Bay-Friendly Gardening Guide - Chapter 5

Short Description
For the Butterflies: A Wildlife Garden in Alameda. M. arla Lee, whose Bay-Friendly. Mediterranean garden is also described. in this guide, takes a keen …

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Content
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The vegetation in our cities and towns
is remarkably diverse, and from the point of view of some animals, we’ve been spectacularly
successful in creating habitat. The once-migratory Anna’s hummingbird has become a yearround
resident in coastal California, largely because of the abundance of food sources (both
feeders and flowering plants) that humans have made available.
Our residential environments are essentially an open woodland growing over scattered
impervious surfaces. This architecture favors certain species, including many of the perching
birds, who like shrubs and edges and can easily move between patches of habitat.
Terrestrial species have a harder time making a go of it in suburbia, but many persist and,
along with their winged brethren, they will gladly make use of your yard if given a little
incentive.
Gardening for Wildlife
Many organizations promote gardening for wildlife, and their recommendations have
much in common with Bay-Friendly Gardening. They exhort the gardener to (among
other things) quit pesticides, embrace bugs, lose the lawn, and use native plants. Most
recommend an architecture of low, medium, and high plantings, and most follow
tenets set down by the National Wildlife Federation: food, water, places to hide, and
places to…